Category: Common CV Mistakes

Job-seekers are hurting their chances of securing new employment by not spending enough time on their CV, according to a survey. The most common mistake is sending a general CV to employers, rather than tailoring it to a specific role, according to research by the National Careers Service. Two thirds of careers advisers said this stopped people securing new jobs. More than 60% of advisers said spelling mistakes were a…

Will anyone write you a free CV? We seem to be getting a lot of “hits” from people searching for a completely free CV writing service. I can assure you that there is no-one out there who offers free CV writing! There are plenty of websites that initially say that you can make a CV free of charge but this is a honey-pot. They draw you in to using their…

Lots of people use headers in their CV for putting in their contact details and on the face of it, it’s a good idea since it gives you a little more space on the page for content. However, you could be making a massive mistake with your CV if you do this. The problem arises with the scanning software used by the job boards and the way that they can…

Firstly, make sure you put your mobile number on your CV. Recruiters work 9-5 (or 8-6!) and need to be able to contact you during those hours, or, at the very least, leave you a message so you need to give them the number. Secondly, don’t write it as one long sequence of numbers as this makes it hard to read and more likely that they will dial the wrong number. If…

We see a lot of CVs that make use of Text Boxes in Word – don’t do it! They are a nightmare when you decide to change anything on your CV as they don’t obey the usual rules of formatting. Whenever we get a CV in that uses text boxes we cut all the text (ctrl+x) and then use “edit>paste special”. Using this you can then paste the text as…

Sounds obvious doesn’t it? But, it’s probably the commonest mistake we see when we review CVs. Ultimately a CV is about you, but you’re not writing it for yourself but rather to achieve your career objective. Whoever reads your CV will, in all probability, have never heard of you or met you and just wants to know that you meet their objectives and requirements. You really need to make sure that when a recruiter or employer…

If you can’t spell Curriculum Vitae then don’t put it on your CV – just use “CV”. Then latest incorrect spellings we have seen are: CURRICULAM VITA Cirriculum Vitea and Curiculum Vitae. The commonest cause of the incorrect spelling is using CAPITALS which don’t get picked up by the spell checker in Word. So, if you are writing your own CV and spelling is not your strong point, make sure you…

Just had a CV in for review and it had the following as an opening Key Skill: EXELENT COMUNICATION SKILLS Why didn’t they spot this!! It’s simple. Firstly they haven’t properly read their own CV and secondly it’s in UPPER CASE. Why does this matter? Because Word doesn’t look for spelling mistakes when words are in upper case and we’re all so reliant on spell checkers that we’ve become lazy with our…